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Is there a thing where you can list all the artists and bands whose tour schedules you want to see, or when they are in town?

I don't mean signing up for individual artists' mailings (done that), or for signing up with a ticket service that lists everything in the area from sports events to comedy shows to concerts (got that too) -- I'm wondering if there's something like http://on-my.tv/ where you can select a set of artists or locations or whatever, and they e-mail you monthly updates or you check a site or something?

At least one of you, including probably filmg33k and ropo, knows the answer to this, yes?

Boys and girls in America (and Europe, and Canada, and Asia, and Oceania, and even the Pole, for 30toseoul)! I promised a pimping post about The Hold Steady [wikipedia], and here she comes.

About... four years ago I got hooked on Regina Spektor and her entire songography was on repeat on my Zune for months. Now it's the Hold Steady, and I've actually become unable to listen to anything else without wishing it was Craig Finn's Jersey vibe and half-spoken lyrics against that 80s real-band-playing-real-instruments track. They've drawn comparisons to Springsteen and REM, the Tragically Hip and Sonic Youth, Ted Leo and even Billy Joel. They are all these things and more, people!

Here's their one single, though I don't even know if it got radio play; the opening track from "Boys and Girls in America," Stuck Between Stations. Take it as a taster; if you like it, just keep rocking the fuck on with the rest of their discography.

There are four albums so far, and while individually they're amazing, and while individual tracks on each album can also be isolated as a-fucking-mazing, there's an even better story happening across the four albums, starring the same set of characters (Hallelujah [call her Holly] the teenage burnout, Charlemagne, the struggling drug dealer/pimp, and Gideon, the gang member -- and a whole cast of other supporting characters who get drunk at music festivals, get fucked against dumpsters behind townie bars, get in knife fights, fall in love, party till it almost kills them, and wake up in Ybor City looking for a change).

The aesthetic is set up on the first record, "Almost Killed Me," with a growling lyric-rich Craig Finn and some old-school hair band/punk guitar licks.

Then "Separation Sunday" really got the narrative ball rolling; it's entirely a concept album based around Holly, Charlemagne and Gideon, slightly rawer than the other records and still totally lyric-based and groovy.

"Boys and Girls in America" is totally the most accessible record, and where lots of fans (including me!) got started. Three years ago or so, pene and unwinding came to town and played me "Citrus" and "Party Pit," and I fell into this band crush headlong. Later when I went back to hear the two earlier albums I started reading the narrative and character development (as well as musical development and shifting styles), but for the first few months all I listened to was BaGiA. It's where the single (above) is from, and it busted the Hold Steady into mainstream reviewers' consciousness. Read a review from Pitchfork Media, here.

The newest record, "Stay Positive," just came out a couple months ago, and while being an album totally addressed to summer '08, is also a bookend to "Almost Killed Me," which started with the song "Positive Jam" as a band intro. "Stay Positive," after four records of some killer highs and some crushing lows, reminds us, "it's one thing to start with a positive jam; it's another thing to see it all through." I can not stop listening to "Stay Positive," occasionally clicking back to tracks on the earlier albums just to remember how they pay off in the most recent record.

( zip file full of songs, and commentary about them, under cut )

Thick-Necked Man, Crash Test Dummies. Here's Brad Roberts again with a voice like an ancient steamship twanging his way through alt-country riddled with harmonicas, cowbells and a large vibrating egg. This a great down-with-the-man (any man!) anthem that's gotta be more resonant now, even, than it was when it was written fifteen years ago. He watches TV, all-star wrestling, slams a six of ale, hits his wife and wrecks the car and spends a long dark night in jail / preacher man he comes around, says does he know the mess he's in? He says he'll turn to Jesus if he'll bail him out and buy him gin

Mirrorframes, Summer Blanket. What's beautiful about this song is that you immediately feel like you've heard it before, like it's a campfire tune you grew up with. It turns out that's because this uses some very common folk riffs, and Keith Michaud, who is Summer Blanket, has the kind of rumbly, reassuring proto 30something folkboy voice that curls into the back of your brain like it was born there. Fans of Josh Ritter should check out Summer Blanket. So do I hold you down, do I keep you in place? Sometimes I can't tell by that look on your face so I'm putting mirrors into all our picture frames so you can see yourself right now.

Dragon Ships, Fruit Bats. One more step in my continued crusade to foist all of Fruit Bats' discography upon you people. This has the usual combination of weird lyrics that get even weirder upon investigation, set to a catchy, indie rock track. Another one that's fun to sing, especially the chorus. I wish I was a Viking in 1103, I'd fuck up shit on the high cold sea.

//

(+ 2 more, which were waiting for either Songs that begin with M or Songs that begin with T, but then I spent a favorite T and a favorite M already, above, so these are freebies)

Might As Well Dance, Patty Larkin. I defy you not to literally jig. Ohhhh, the boogeyman'll getcha! Ooooh, when you're lyin' in your bed! Pull the pillow off your head -- you might as well dance!

They'll Need A Crane, They Might Be Giants. You've all already heard this song but maybe you don't have it and it's SO plaintive and sad! Punk and I have big plans to write XF songfic to this, where Mulder and Scully get a divorce. Don't call me at work again, no, no the boss still hates me / I'm just tired and I don't love you anymore / and there's a restaurant we should check out where the other nightmare people like to go / I mean nice people, baby, wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare.

See the previous entry for songs that begin with B, lemme know if you need a re-up.

These are YSI links all, and mp3s most.

( I was doing handstands on the bandstand at the shimmy-shimmy coco-pop bar )

wearemany set to blitz LJ with NO MORE WAR songs, here on the third anniversary of MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I give you:
Everywhere, Billy Bragg (YSI link; thanks, simplystars!)

( over here, over there, it's the same everywhere )

I miss Gmail, back in the good old days when a person could transmit files over the intarweb and another person would receive them on his/hir own computer in an INBOX of some sort! Gmail has been down now for far too long for the ADD generation; I'm getting agita.

Here's more Fruit Bats, this one makes you want to simultaneously bop and whistle, AND contains Chris "We Are Still Mad At You" Carter's favorite horse latitudes. Fruit Bats, "A Dodo's Egg". Holler if you like, holler if you want more, holler if Gmail rises from the ashes and spreads its wings full of e-mail again?

And to celebrate Gmail's reupping, Eisley,"Trolley Wood," which is about a magical wood with trolleys in it! Would I lie to you?

ETA: Still mad at Chris Carter.

Why won't my iTunes launch? megolas is our King.

I click on the icon, and I get the arrow cursor and then the arrow/hourglass cursor for a moment, and then just the arrow cursor while the computer thinks, and then the arrow/hourglass a little, and then just the arrow and it's all over and NO PROGRAM LAUNCHES? [ETA: !? interbang!]

( the enclosed is for archival purposes only! )

Oh and also? Does anyone have Coolio's vers. of "Gangsta's Paradise" on mp3 they could send me?

The previous lyrical exhibition was only a test. Had it been a real query, I would not know the answers to the question of which songs said lyrics belonged to. As it is, I do know (mostly), and have cribbed said for you, behind the following lj-cut.

( Cribbed Lyric Answer Sheet LJ-Cut Here )

Meanwhile, I'm spending a good portion of my inter-car time these days with KZLA, America's Most Listened-To Country Station. Or, as I prefer to say, "country music radio station," because I love the rhythm of that phrase. It's practically dactylic.

People complain about the radio in LA, but I'm really pretty pleased with it. We spawned Ryan Seacrest, after all, though I'm developing a new fondness for his replacement, Jason Pullman, on the drive-time slot on STAR 98.7, which has all ten songs on the pop playlist you could ever want. Jason Pullman got a lot of flak because in the dark he sounds just like Seacrest, from the wide-mouthed chuckle to the "I'm-not-gay-really" slushy sibilants. Personally, I was peeved that Lisa Foxx, Ryan's longtime cohost, didn't step up and headline the show herself, and I was tempted to blame the market for immediately bringing in a new GUY rather than letting Lisa helm for a while, but at the end of the day, Lisa's just not charismatic enough to have her own show. She's a sidekick. And there I go, betraying the sisterhood once more.

Back to radio. KCRW, of course, represents as our NPR-and-Polyphonic Spree station, as every good urban market needs a place to go for Garrison Keillor and Morning Becomes Eclectic. And we've got 103.1, excuse me INDY 103.1, the new Clearchannel "independent" radio station which, despite a propensity for Pearl Jam and Bob Marley, really does an okay job playing indie-label stuff. Bottom line, a reasonable dial, and I've got four out of my six preprogrammed buttons in the car taken care of without having to revert to oldies and/or Pacifica.

And yet. Some time earlier this year, I decided I'd give the country music radio station a try. Which isn't to say I'm without affection for country music as a genre; quite the contrary, actually. I've always been a mamas-don't-let-yer-babies-grow-up cowgirl, but with the exception of the rockabilly brigade (Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Robert Earl Keen, Jr) and the alt-country bluegrass mainstream (Lucinda Williams, Allison Krauss), my knowledge of straight-up contemporary country fizzled out sometime around Dolly Parton. I mean, I can pick Trisha Yearwood out of a lineup, and I can hum along to Reba, but there's a whole school of skinny girls and modern cowboys who have (up until now) eluded me. Enter KZLA.

I've been listening steadily since, oh, Christmas? I change channels for commercials or war songs (of which there has been a preponderance, and I find them all both manipulative and frightening, which is to say, I listen to "American Soldier" and it makes me cry, and then makes me angry with myself for being duped, so, anyway, off to KCRW or Indy I go) -- I check 98.7 first, stick if it's "Hey Ya" ('cause if you don't like that song, check yourself for a pulse), stick if it's Five For Fighting's "100 Years," switch if it's that Hoobastank song or anything by Sarah McLachlan, check Indie 103.1 and stay unless it's Bob Marley or tuneless punk, check KCRW and stay unless it's the all-Radiohead hour (because I'm in the CAR, yo). And still I'm left with a hot whole lot of country songs.

I don't know the names or artists for any of 'em. Nine months of listening, you'd think I'd pick up something, but, nada. I can sing along and the top of my lungs, and I do, but I can't tell Toby Keith from Kenny Chesny and I can't tell Rachel wossname from Mindy wossname either.

Therefore (because you folks are way more interesting than google), I bring you the What Country Song Am I Probably Misquoting Country Music Radio Station Lyrics Quiz List. If you've ever spun to the country side of the dial, please, take a gander:

( the band played songs that we had never heard )